Now Accepting Applications For My 8th Best Friend

I’m a secret keeper. Guilt is my go-to emotion. I don’t think guilt existed when religion didn’t. There was a time before religion existed. Think about it: dinosaurs. Language is a construct solid like a conservatory, man-made mostly, the reason I was brought up to believe men would save me, that all words associated with women have been pejorative at some point.

I won’t share drinks or lipstick. If you date my ex-boyfriend, I’ll harass you passive aggressively until he hurts you how he hurt me, which is to say emotionally. If you ____ him, I’ll _______ delete you, put your number on dating sites next to pictures of Pamela Anderson lookalikes, I’ll list you in lonely heart’s.

I bought a best friend necklace for Gemma but I didn’t give it to her. I bought the same ring as one of my friends and thought it meant engagement, or marriage, or whatever rings meant or mean. The books I read growing up made me hope I’d make a good wife one day, but the nagging feeling, next to the guilt, that’s a chip that got fitted, like the ones conspiracy theorists think they got probed with, is that I won’t, and that that’s even a problem.

I’ll make you dinner. I’ll watch The Sitter with you. We’ll pass comment on Jonah Hill, speculate whether we’d kiss him. We’ll research geomagnetic storms so we have something to say to him, because actors play characters with similar beliefs to the ones they have, and identical interests.